Mia Farrow – Vidal Sassoon

With all the hype about Vidal Sassoon not cutting Mia Farrow’s hair in 1968, I came across an image of one of my short cropped haircuts. It was taken in 1966 and here I am, at 16, with my friend Pia. I was at that time, what they used to call a “continental barber”. As we were doing European cutting styles and women that just wanted haircuts would come in. It was in 1964 just as I started my apprenticeship that the haircutting revolution started.

Setting the Record (and the Hair) Straight

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By MIA FARROW

Published: January 23, 2013
An article last Thursday titled “Memorable Clips,” about career-changing haircuts, said that Mia Farrow had long, blond hair until Vidal Sassoon gave her a pixie cut for the 1968 film “Rosemary’s Baby.” “According to Hollywood legend,” it added, “Frank Sinatra, Ms. Farrow’s husband at the time, was so against the cut that he had her served with divorce papers after seeing it.”

It turns out that the legend was just that.

After Gillian Previn, Ms. Farrow’s daughter-in-law, e-mailed The Times to correct the record, Ms. Farrow was reached for comment and elaborated further — something she had done in her 1997 memoir, “What Falls Away.” In her e-mailed letter, Ms. Farrow included photos from her wedding day to Mr. Sinatra on July 19, 1966, as well as by Richard Avedon for Vogue, that show her closely cropped coif. An excerpt from her letter follows.

I had literally cut it myself earlier that year — with a pair of fingernail scissors — while working on the “Peyton Place” TV series at Fox Studios. This was long before I ever heard of Vidal Sassoon. My then-boyfriend, Frank Sinatra, loved the cut, and so I kept it short. (I purchased some hair scissors; then, as now, I cut it myself.) Vidal Sassoon is mentioned in the book “Rosemary’s Baby” and the film. So, Paramount decided to stage a photo shoot in which Mr. Sassoon trimmed my 1 1/2-inch hair to 1 inch. The whole event was taken in good spirits. (I wore a wig during the earlier scenes.)

I intend no disrespect to Mr. Sassoon, but he had nothing to do with my haircut. Neither, I can assure you, did my divorce from Frank Sinatra have to do with my haircut.